George Ward Hunt

The Rt Hon. George Ward Hunt

George Ward Hunt (30 July 1825 – 29 July 1877) was a British Conservative Party politician and statesman, Chancellor of the Exchequer and First Lord of the Admiralty in 1st and 2nd ministries of Benjamin Disraeli.

He was born at Buckhurst in Berkshire, the only surviving son of a minister, and graduated from Christ Church, Oxford, in 1851, and 21 November of that year was called to the bar at the Inner Temple. He married Alice Eden, daughter of a bishop, in 1857, and finally entered the House of Commons as Member of Parliament for Northamptonshire North, at the end of the year, having made several unsuccessful attempts previously.

He was a Secretary to the Treasury from 1866 to 1868, in the ministry of the 14th Earl of Derby. He was then appointed to the Exchequer when Disraeli took office.

By repute, when he presented his one and only Budget speech to parliament he discovered that he had left the ministerial "Red Box" containing it at home. This is said to be the start of the tradition that, when a Chancellor leaves for the House of Commons on Budget Day, he shows the assembled crowd the box by holding it aloft.

Hunt was appointed to the Admiralty for Disraeli's second ministry, serving from 1874 until his death from gout in 1877.

Although he was considered competent at finance, his turn at the Admiralty was, for a long time, not much admired. Recently however, this attitude has shifted.^[1]

A very heavy-set person, he is said to have been responsible for the semicircle that is cut out from the end of the table in the Admiralty Board Room.

His residence was Wadenhoe House in Northamptonshire. He died at Bad Homburg, Germany.

Notes

1. ^ Eric J. Grove, The Royal Navy since 1815, p. 57-59.

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